Survived and Punished: Incest Victims' Treatment in Progressive-Era Chicago

Abstract:This article examines Progressive reformers' treatment of incest victims in Illinois, which was one of three states in the early 1900s that considered fatherdaughter incest a crime analogous to rape. Despite their legal status as victims, abused girls were nonetheless viewed by reformers as morally and mentally deficient. I explore the vexed relationship between Illinois's criminal justice and child protection systems, where girls removed from abusive homes were classified as either "delinquent" or "feebleminded" and subsequently institutionalized despite being victims of crime. I argue that incest victims were the ground upon which the patriarchal family ideal was contested, mapped, and ultimately reinscribed by reformers, upon whom victims depended for help.